The Gun Lobby and States Rights

Sir;... To consider killing some one is an absolutely ugly and insane thought... I thought through most of my working life that my death was a real possibility... Today I may die; was my encouragement to get started with my day... To die is nothing... It is no great feat... The good and the bad, the smart and the dull all manage to die; but dying is a far cry from killing...
A friend once asked me for a recommendation to the sherrifs department to help him become a deputy; and I refused...What sort of madness possesses people with the notion to strap on a gun, knowing they may have to use if before nightfall to cut short a life...I cannot imagine it, though I have at times lived it...I will not encourage it, or be responsible for it... I just accept it...
Yes, I was once mad, and angry too... But to really consider the possibility of bloodshed, out of anger, out of hatred, out of fear is to let bitter poison course freely through your veins; and if you are any kind of human being you soon grow sick of it, have enough of it, and reject it from your life... What do I have to do???. Every true esshole I ever had the displeasure to meet self destructed... I never had to lift a finger to speed them toward their end... If I had loved them like an angel, blind to all their faults, and forgetting all injuries I could not have saved them... They were so determined...
It is not without some determination that we get through the difficult days of our lives... I used to say: if the boys can't get it, the men will... Like the Army; Ironowrkers say: The difficult we do right away, and the impossible only take us longer...The sense of what determined men and women can accomplish in life will always inspire me... That sort of determination is a good thing... Those who have determined to play a part in their own destruction or in the destruction of others have my sympathy, but not my respect..
With that said; it is important to realize that democracy is built upon a foundation of self reliance and self respect... Some people, and usually those with the least reason to expect respect are the first to demand it... No problem... What is a little civility in an otherwise uncivil world??? Howd'ya do, and excuse me, and thank you, and may I -are not so hard to remember; and it is not hard to know that the best of us is not much better than the least...Perhaps because I was often armed, I simply presumed people are armed, if not in fact, then by the right to demand respect...
When your whole society tends to look at wealth as honor, it is too easy for the honorable poor to feel dishonored, and disrespected...If we never forget that we are absolutely correct in demanding respect from others, and absolutely correct to defend ourselves and our rights from anyone, we will be free...
We are seeing with all honor following wealth to the bank, that civility is breaking down across the reach of society, and we must consider that if people must defend civility with a gun, that the battle is already lost... This is not the first society that has seen its civility and democracy go in the crapper... A wealthy Greek once complained that you could not push a slave in rags out of your way in the market place for fear of pushing a free man... That was a wealthy society, but as the wealth was gathered up by the wealthy, life became precarious for those who remained poor... And democracy and civility fell into disrespect...
So; it may seem strange to consider the thought of using a gun as insanity, and still believe it is a positive move for Americans...There is no democracy like a man with a gun...You cannot tell such a man that his vote does not count...If he has to make it count he will, and that is democracy, founded on individual strength, and not on shared weakness...
Sir;... Law enforcement is our largest social expense...The problem is that with all that expense, no security or safety is bought...There are many places in this country were people are so distant that they must rely on themselves, and on their own wits for their defense...With the concentration of wealth in the wealthy, and with their extreme demands upon the police and the legal system; those people without a lot of wealth find themselves threatened by those with no wealth... People have to look to their own defense, and at the same time consider what remedy there might be for a society pushed by savage inequalities into a life and death struggle at the bottom...
It is a joke to say the we have met the enemy, and it is us... Well yes; a democracy that does not defend the rights of one against the attacks of another is not a democracy...All people should be free in their own affairs...The constitution that gives people the power over the rights of others, but denies them crucial authority in their own lives is a cookbook of destruction...
Look at who has been protected from the majority, and who has not... Property, wealth and religions are free of government and democracy and from those forts they sally forth against all our civil rights...That situation should be reversed...Look at the vast effort and organization necessary to have a right recognized, and it can all be twarted with a simple majority... Why??? Should there not be some obvious injury coming out of a right give it limits???
It is the individual in the conduct of his own business that should enjoy his rights, and those who would interfere with him should show just cause for a vote in the issue... Why should I have a say on what some one does in his own privacy on the other side of the country??? Can I show how his business injures me??? It is because some people are made more free, protected as most people are not, that the rest of us find our pool of rights shrinking before our eyes...
Why should I tell some one they cannot carry a gun??? Do I know their situation better than they do??? It is those who have worked at the destruction of democracy from the very writing of the constitution who put their interests above our own where they could be little tampered with, who most fear the people asserting their general civil rights as limited as they are...With the government unable to tax those with privilages, and the privilaged being able to hold the population in their sway, and rob us blind, the last thing they want is for people to go about armed and determined to defend their civil rights...It is the poverty spread by the gathering of wealth that puts so many on their guard, and forces them to defend what little they own with their lives...
Look at the heroes of days past, when democracy was vital and real... Cu'Chullain would drop a man for a slight to his honor in a heartbeat... Where was there ever democracy where there was not mutual trust and honor... I trust these people with Guns... I do think they should all join militias to weed out the nut heads, and barring that could accept some reasonable limits... Just because I do not chose to pack a gun, and will not anticipate the necessity to use one does not mean I can take rights that others feel are necessary...
Thanks...Sweeney

Concealed carry is a right of every American under the Second Amendment, and perhaps under the greater authority of common sense. This columns trashing of the concept of concealed carry is just a pander to the latest political wind. I am losing my respect for the laurels-propped Shields with just about every column he writes. The thought leadership is gone.

If a citizen can demonstrate capacity to qualify for concealed carry--training, background checks, etc., then the state has an obligation to authorize that capacity in that citizen. Go ahead, put reasonable restrictions in place, but every law abiding citizen has that right, especially in a crime-ridden wild-west country like this, which has not a prayer of offering adequate police protection against crime to its citizens.

Life for someone who just wants to be left alone in the average U.S. city is a constant struggle to avoid crime. The federal and state police powers offer just about nothing to help us.

When bubble-encased, Newtown, Connecticut gets hit, all of a sudden everyone stands up and takes notice. Got news for you, bubble-warriors, this happens every day to kids in inner cities, EVERY SINGLE DAY.

And it has been happening for a VERY LONG TIME. Dems, are you looking? Yawn. But blow away a few kids in Bubble Land, and all of a sudden, we have a national crisis.

Let us protect ourselves, you pandering hypocrites.

That is the issue. You government-worshippers are not protecting us. Don't take away our ability to do what you have failed to do.

Re: Masako;...We do not have much of a government if we cannot trust our government, and we do not have much of a society if we cannot trust our fellow citizens... I do not mind reasonable limits, and that introduction of reasonable has always been carte blanche for the Courts to write the law since they wrongly believe that they are reasonable, and no one else is...
I know that I trust the people more than the government, but it is the very same people who most fear the government who are the greatest tyrants in control of government... They are forever trying to give their warped morality the force of law when no one standing for individual rights is trying to do more than protect individual freedom...
I hope it is not lost on people that this same party that want to force mothers to bring infants to term unloved is the party supporting their right to extinguish that life when it has strayed byond legal limits... They want the law only because they think of law as a thing apart, standing like an obelisk on its own foot... Law does not stand alone, and does not stand aloof from the good or evil that comes out of it... Most of the evils that confront this society grew out of legal rather than illegal activity... People protected with law what could not be maintained with reason or morality, and misery has grown out of it...The disrespect for government is the disrespect of law by people who have too often had law shoved down their throats that their morality disagreed with...
Consider the long and protracted effort of the Supreme Court in regard to Brown V. Board... The court was very sensitive to the feelings of the people involved, and did not want to exhaust its authority as the Tanney court did with Dred Scott... Government wants to be the place of done deals, and we are so divided by injustice and bad government that we no longer accept the done deal...And this is as it should be, that government should seek and demand consent which it has for too long taken for granted...
Government should be the place of national dialogue, and it is not... Parties have limited the voices to two, and defined their districts to limit the power of the voters... When a majority can get their way, they force their opinions on the country when a government decision ought to be the point where the national dialogue is broadcast...
Do the people accept this law, and if not, then why not, and if the matter is laid upon the table for reconsideration, what will the people accept... Again; it is those people who think the law is the law, and the government is the law who are the greatest problem because the law book is no more than a book of suggestions... The people are the law, and their morality constitutes their prohibitions and penalties... All matters should be brought before the people, and if we are a democracy there should be no done deals until all can be brought to consensus...There is the court of the people, and it is seldom just, but no government can stand without it... The government must stand for individual rights, and it only seldom does, but there are times when the people have to realize that the privilages they have grown fond of are granted by individuals with the right to do so, and the right to reject those privilages...
When government does not agree with the people, and the people will not agree with government, it is time to reconsider the who idea of nation and national government... It is time for a new constitution upon lines we can all agree to...
Thanks....Sweeney

The only thing worse than a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun who is a bad shot.

Re: Mike Ohr. Nice word game, but I doubt you really believe that. Do you ever do any walking around inner city streets? Ever been around during an earthquake, when the cops were nowhere to be found?

The bubble's mostly great when you can stay inside (true, we've seen a few monumental exceptions like Newtown, but the risk for them is vanishingly small compared to the average citizen in inner cities), but only a chosen few get to rent it.

Re: James A, Sweeney. Nope, I can't trust my government. That is the point.

Much as I sometimes feel its intentions are good, its competence is in the pits. Especially when it comes to protecting average folks from the risk of crime they are exposed to every single day, not just during once-in-a-lifetime tragedies like Newtown, Connecticut.

James, Much like the Wal-Mart guard that shot and killed the shoplifter yesterday as she started to drive away with TWO CHILDREN in her car, I can only imagine what a bunch of John Waynes will be like in our schools tromping around with a loaded gun and a half-loaded brain. No, I really DO fear the good guy with a gun more than the bad guy.

Re: Masako...Sir, we have no reason to trust our government and equally no reason to be all paranoid about it... A lot of of people on the right like it fine when it is their government running everyone out of their rights... They are in favor of the idea, but when it gets around to their right they don't like it...And, then, suddenly the government is a gang of tyrants or fascists...
Well; it certainly has been, and when it was mostly that, they ate it up with spoons... It is not a matter of tryanny to them, but what brand of tyranny they will accept, and the worst thing about it is that they are right... You cannot police the wild west... People have to look after their own crap, and one size fitzall gun legislation is not the answer...
Neither is being governed by paranoia the answer... And I am certain the government would like everyone disarmed so they can have their way with the population at will... Tough... The guns are not going away soon, and should not; but on the other hand, this government that we cannot trust is morally and financially bankrupt... It does not have particular support from the people left and right; but it cannot scratch its butt either, without some one making 3.2 billion dollars, and an act of congress...
This government cannot do much good, but neither can they do much harm... The problem is that we need it to do a lot of good, and no harm, but having made itself a partocracy, and having handed out privilages like party favors it no longer has the means to tax or control people, and contolling IT is a life time occupation...The government makes Jabba the Hutt look like a maggot, but they don't make him look like a saint... The best thing about the government is potentially the worst thing: It is ineffectual...
The government was designed to be reflexive to the will of the people in times of peace and dynamic in times of war... Because the government answered to the parties in the control of the rich, and the religious- it has governed poorly in peace, and fattened the rich on war... With the people broken financially, and divided morally, it is doubtful that government could respond to any true danger to this people... Those people government left ungoverned have come to govern it, and from that position have robbed us all...Such a government should fear its people, and such people should fear their government, but if the people could get their head out of their butts they would realize they could drop that government like a bomb and there would be about as much left of it when done...
That is not a government... That is a bunch of old chewing gum stuck on the principal of unenlightened self interest...If the people wanted to, they could dump it in a day... Their fear comes face to face with their fear of each other, their misplaced hope, and their doubts for a brand new future full of opportunity...
There is a letter extant from Lincoln informing one of his governors about the plans he had for some great campaign against the rebels... The man had requested great numbers of horses and wagons and men who were simply not available... Lincoln had to tell this man the facts of life, that he would need so many of his wagons just to haul food for the horses, etc; that the whole project became hopelessly mired in need...
I ask you how the government we distrust could attack us without our help, without our consent??? Sure, we hate and fear each other; and we may well be turned to our own destruction... They may even nuke us if they feel threatened... But they could be so easily put out of business by replacement that we have little to fear...The army will do what it is told to do and what it is paid to do; but it is the people who decide what value the money will have... The army could be more easily starved into agreement than fought into it...They need us... We only need each other...
The fact is that we have more in common with the nuts on the right, and they have more in common with us nuts on the left than we together have in common with our government... We need to find a common tongue... We need to find out where our common ground is, or we will be buried in it... The government is incompetent... Our danger is not from it, but from the fact that it has so unmanaged things, and mismanaged what was its to manage that it is a hazzard to us all... Let's start over!
Thanks...Sweeney

Re: Mike Ohr... A lot of that crap is Walmart mind games... I had some relatives who worked there, and they would not let them stop some one from shoplifting, or charge them with it because it was bad publicity and took employee time without profit... Instead, they simply charged the employee for all that was taken... What is the employee going to do??? Are you going to walk up and say: I seen you stealing that stuff; but I can't afford any more deductions from my wages, so could you move over a few rows and pick their bones for a while??? I would like to see me making the moral argument with a thief for the greater profit of a greater thief... Who knows that it may work... But, who knows that his argument may not be better than my own, and that I would decide to steal the whole store, perhaps even the whole corporation??? It is so much easier to take a life, and then you can deny the absolute need you see around you... People are poor... We are poor too... When does the greater poverty of one become an argument for their greater ease and comfort... Perhaps, instead, it is the best possible argument for their execution... Are you having a rough day??? Did you spend your kid's lunch money at the casino??? Let me help you with that... Bang... Bang... Would you like your old problems back???
That is the sorts of choices we get now adays... You can have bad; and if you don't like it you can have worse... Does anyone think George Zimmerman wouldn't like the good old days when anything not nailed down was likely to grow legs... It is a marvelous world... Things like that are happening all the time... Stuff growning legs and heavy people getting blown away in a light breeze... Sort of like Alice in Wonderland without the queen or the cat...
Thanks...Sweeney

James, Thanks for your response. I'm not sure how to address your comments, but having recently re-read Miguel de Certantes, I do recognize some of the train of thought. Let's just hope that Congress will get its act together on this all-important issue and pass the background checks approved by over 90% of the American public. At least that will give us all a sense of democracy in action.

Re: Mike Ohr;... No luck there... It is difficult to say the democrats were more emotional on this than the republicans... In fact, both sides were way too emotional and there is no place for that in government... On the other hand, when government is not working and rational arguments are having no effect it is quite natural for people to resort to the irrational, and emotional...
My point as usual is that guns are not necessary for revolution, and perhaps necessary to its defense... In the meantime, the presence and threat of guns queer every rational conversation... If you want me to blow sand up your ass, bring your gun... If you want me to speak rationally, and truthfully, let's leave the guns home...There is a sort of madness predicated in the act of buying and owning a man killing weapon... I do; but they serve a dual purpose to me, at least, if I ever grow less sick of death to the point where I can again hunt deer...Now, they collect dust, and perhaps rust...
What is the point... There are places you almost have to own a gun to feel secure, but in the city they are an impediment to law and order...I live in the city... I will help the police in the pursuit of their legitimate objects... If I have the right, even the obligation to look to my own defense, the first step in that direction is to have my own guns secure, as they are for the most part...
Before I would say I need an arsonal, I would have to say who is my enemy... Though I disagree with many, it is only because I find disagreement agreeable... People are not the problem... People are the solution, and perfect agreement is unnecessary to the solution... We are always going to see things from our own perspectives, and that is a given...Let us learn to live with it, and get beyond it..
Thanks...Sweeney

Re: James A, Sweeney Owning a gun increases your likelihood of being victim by gun violence by a factor of three, controlling for all other variables. So much for the necessity of gun ownership for defense.